Fall 2023

November Conference is “Game-Changer”
and “Best Form of Self-Care”
The National Directors Conference, November 16-18,
is AACT’s biannual, three-day conference, where full-time
theatre directors (artistic, managing, or administrative) gather
to share their challenges and successes, learn about other
theatres’ operations, and network with colleagues from across
the country.
“There were ideas in abundance.”
While the new perspectives and vital insights the National
Directors Conference provides are important, Goes stressed that
the experience is much bigger—it’s personal, too. She found that
attending the conference and reconnecting with other community
Based on pre-conference
surveys, sessions at the San
Antonio, Texas, conference
will include in-depth
conversations about audience
development, community
engagement, financing the
organization, production hits
and misses, and much more.
Attendees are guaranteed to
leave this conference with
practical tools to take back to
their theatres.
David Cockerell
Susan Goes, Executive
Director of Oregon’s Cottage
Theatre, agrees: “My key
takeaways were pragmatic in San Antonio, Texas
ones—software tools to
investigate, ticket-pricing strategies to consider, and new ideas
for community partnerships, among other things,” she said.
AACT Past President Chris Serface address attendees at the 2021 National Directors Conference
theatre people was “the best form of self-care I could imagine. [It]
reminded me of the joy and importance of live theatre.”
Sara Phoenix, Vice President of Development at Tulsa Performing
Arts Center, who previously attended the conference
as Artistic Director of Theatre Tulsa, said that the most important
part of attending the conference is “talking to others who
do what I do, and who understand the unique nature of our
roles. We build relationships.”
Scot MacDonald, the newly appointed Managing Director
of Theatre Charlotte, previously attended the conference as
a representative of Memorial Opera House in Valparaiso,
Indiana. He is impressed by how, while “we all come from our
many scattered points on the map, each time we come together
we pick right back up where we left off..”
Most important, he says, “We celebrate each other when
we succeed, we grieve our losses together. Conferences like this
are incredible, and they can be game changers.”
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AACT SPOTLIGHT